Babywearing

I love babywearing.  In addition to all the benefits to the child and the parent, babywearing also is a great way for you to get some things done while holding your baby.  Colin gets a little fussy most evenings after about 5:00 and wearing him really calms him down and allows me to get things done around the house as well.  Yesterday evening, he was overstimulated and overtired from a day of being out and about for 6 hours and even holding him wasn't enough to get him to calm down.  I put him in the carrier and he was out cold... we tried to take him out for a bit to let him rest in the swing and he was having none of it.  So I put him back in the wrap and he was out again.

 

I was lucky enough to inherit different kinds of baby carriers from my sister.  When her son was first born, my friend Bonnie recommended the Sleepy Wrap; she was using it with her 2 month old and loved it so my sister decided to try it out.  I also tried it out when I was out there helping her with her son when he was a few weeks old and I liked it (somewhere there is a picture of me wearing him).  That was my first introduction to babywearing and attachment parenting.  So when my sister passed her Sleepy Wrap on to me, I was very excited.  I had Colin in the Sleepy at day 5, I think.  He wasn't cranky or anything, but it gave me a way to be close to him and also open the computer for one of the first times since he was born.  I wish I had a picture of us when he was that small, but these will have to do.  And seriously, who wouldn't want to look down and see that sweet face?

I also was lucky enough to inherit a Mei Tai from my sister.  I think because of ease of use and structure (definitely has more support than the Sleepy), this is currently my favorite carrier.  You can have the same cuddly newborn hold and it's less cumbersome to put on.  In fact, when we went down to the St Patrick's Day parade on Saturday, I refused to take a stroller so I threw Colin in the mei tai and off we went.  The pictures below are from our walk home from the light rail station.

I also inherited 2 ring slings from my sister and one from a friend at work.  Of all the options, this is probably my least favorite of the options I have but it works - like today, when both the mei tai and the Sleepy were in the laundry in preparation for our trip to Indiana, Colin decided he wanted to be worn so I pulled out one of the ring slings and put him in it.  He did sleep in it but for some reason it's just not as comfortable for me as the other two options.  Maybe once he gets bigger it will be easier since I can do more of a hip carry than the newborn snuggle carry, but we'll just have to see.

Ultimately I would love to move to a woven wrap... but that is in the future, I'm sure, along with a soft structured carrier like the Ergo, which my sister still uses occasionally with my two year old nephew and continue to do babywearing for a while to come.

Our balding baby

Babies usually lose the hair they are born with so it should come as no surprise to us that Colin is losing his hair.  Also, until the hair starts growing back in, I guess you can't say exactly what color their hair will be.  I started in this world with quite blond hair and Mike has always had dark hair.  We figured that Colin would have dark hair but as of right now it is light with almost has a reddish tint to it.  His eyelashes and eyebrows are very light so I can't quite tell what color they are... I guess only time will tell.

Today, we looked at Colin's hair and realized that he is seriously getting his father's hairline.  I don't know if you can appreciate it very well if you don't know exactly what to be looking for in this picture, but his original hairline is about an inch closer to his eyes than his current hairline.  If you look closely you can see a shadow of little hairs that are left over from his original hairline.  And yes, his head really is reflecting the camera flash that well.  Hopefully he will start getting his permanent hair soon!

Photographic Randomness

Here are a few pictures from our time at home.  I am trying to get them off my iPhone but for some reason it's not connecting to my computer so I'll have to work on that - that is where most of the best ones are.  But here are some from our camera from the past few weeks.  One day I'll figure out how to get pictures that aren't all washed out from the flash, but that would involve learning how to use my camera a little better.  Soon, I promise!

Sweet Quincy's first time holding a baby

Worn out after lots of photo time

During his first photo shoot

Sucking his thumb... and picking his nose

"Hey - quit taking pictures already"

After his first bath

First bath in the bathtub - he never cried, just sat there like this the whole time

Our precious Valentine - wearing the same outfit his cousin wore on Valentine's Day two years before

He loves sleeping on daddy

More with the thumb sucking... he can't do it all the time but it's cute when he does

Mommy's attempt at cute newborn shots

Grunty McGrunterson

Our son is a grunter - all day and all night...  well maybe not that bad, but when you hear him grunting constantly unless he is held for many minutes at a time (we don't let it get beyond minutes, we pick him up pretty quickly), it feel like all day and all night.  Remember when I said he's a noisy sleeper?  I have learned that the noisy sleeping has to do with the grunting.  Many times when I get out of bed to go to the nursery because I think he's awake and wanting to eat (even if he ate 10 minutes prior), he'll be sound asleep just grunting.  I'm starting to learn the difference between grunting/sleeping and waking up to eat.

The grunting started around two weeks.  I noticed that whenever he was trying to pass gas or poop that he was grunting.  I checked with my friends with kids to make sure it was normal and did some searches of online forums as well.  Turns out that it has something to do with a newborn being uncoordinated in their reflexes for pooping.  The best article I found about it was here.  There were many anecdotal stories from parents on forums, too, that said that it goes away at anywhere from 6 weeks - 4 months.  As long as it's normal, I don't necessarily care when it goes away.  I think we may even figure out a way to sleep through it...  though who knows.

And just for a visual reference of what he looks like - see below... If you could see the time stamps on these two photos, you'd see they were seriously within a minute and a half.  It just comes out of nowhere.  But isn't he cute, even when he's grunting!!

"Hey there... I'm just chillin' out in my favorite swing, nothing is wrong"

One more thing to notice about these pictures is that you can see none of his actual outfit.  He likes to spit up, and when he eats too much, likes to spit up a lot.  So whenever he's hanging out in his swing or on mommy or daddy, despite the cute outfit he's wearing, you can only see the bib and the burp cloth.  I promise though, he is wearing a cute outfit underneath!

"It's less than a minute later and time to grunt!!  I may look like I'm crying but it's just lots of grunting, I promise."

Colin's nursery

One of the many things I was planning on doing the week between when Colin was born and when he was supposed to be born was organize the nursery.  As my mom can attest, when they got here, the nursery was full of all kinds of things that did not belong in the nursery - things from when the room was a guest room and a repository for all things that I wanted to deal with later.  Seriously, I found a gift card that was given to us as a wedding present over 2 years ago in that room!

So with Mom and Mike's help, I was able to get the nursery at least to the point where we could put clothes in Colin's dresser and see the crib mattress (which had previously been covered with anything and everything I wanted to throw in there but didn't want to put on the ground).  It was so bad that I didn't want to take pictures to remember what the nursery looked like when he came home from the hospital.

In the past week or two, I have actually gone beyond the organized chaos that was the nursery and gotten it put somewhat together.  There are still things that need to be done like put up decorations on the wall and find an area rug for the floor, but for now, I'm loving the fact that everything is organized and so easy to keep that way (I know, once he gets older it will be harder to keep clean and organized, but I'm loving it right now.

The crib and bookshelf

Changing table/dresser with the few decorations we have currently

A close up of the reading/nursing corner

Oliver loves the nursery - I'm not convinced he hasn't slept in the crib himself..

All the furniture is from a local store called Guys and Dolls.  It's family owned and has been in business in Aurora since 1953.  The service we received was fabulous and the fact that they simply held on to our furniture for months until we were ready to have it delivered was in and of itself wonderful (since we ordered the furniture before the guest room downstairs was ready to go and the nursery was still acting as a guest room).

The chair is from a company called Best Chair that is out of Indiana (also purchased at Guys and Dolls).  It is seriously one of the best investments we have made and it's only been in the house a week.  We ordered it when I was 36 weeks pregnant knowing that it would take 4-6 weeks for delivery.  That said, we spent our first few weeks at home with me nursing only on the bed and occasionally in the chair in the living room.  The first time I nursed in this chair, I was hooked.  Also, it is a savior on nights I have slept in the nursery.  It fully reclines and is very comfortable.  On nights that Colin is not interested in the crib, we have been known to sleep in the chair (twice so far...).

You may notice that there isn't a bedding theme in Colin's room.  Here's what there is to say about that - you aren't supposed to have bumpers, you can't use blankets or quilts in the bed, yet every themed bedding set comes with both bumpers and quilts.  So I can't bring myself to buy a set that I'm not going to be able to use anything except the crib sheet and the bed skirt (which really adds up to less than half of the set when you take in to account the amount of fabric used to make all the pieces of the set).  I'm still looking for a bed skirt but am realizing those are hard to come by on their own.  And I think once the decorating is done on the walls, it will make the fact that he has no "theme" to his bedding much less noticeable.

You'll also notice the the bookshelf is already full of books.  That is just a small number of all the books I have received from various showers and hand-me-downs from friends - I haven't bought him one book yet.  When the rest of the books get here from my Atlanta shower, there is going to be some rearranging because there will be no place to put the books.  I am so lucky to have so many people who want Colin to be a smart, well rounded kiddo.  Even reading to him this young is so important for him in his development.

As we get the rest of the nursery decorated and put together, I'll try to remember to put up some updated pictures.  The goal is to have that done before I go back to work at the beginning of May, so we'll see.

Three weeks

Our little man is three weeks old today!  It's amazing, really, that we have been home for so long and that we have been on our own without Mom and Mike helping out for almost a week!

Colin is growing well.  I can't be certain but based on my non-medical grade scale, he is right at 8 pounds and I can definitely see a difference when I look at him.  He is awake much more than he has been and at the end of the afternoon today I realized that he really was awake for more than he was asleep.  The naps he did take today were quickly interrupted by his desire to eat - the 3 week growth spurt is real!  He has been eating more and more over the past couple of days and I know that I'll make it through this then I'm hoping for more long-term periods of sleep (hey, I'd even be happy with three hours at one stretch at night).

I'm not doing as well as I should be with sleeping when he sleeps during the day mostly because I don't feel hugely tired until 3 or 4 in the afternoon.  Right now, for instance, I'm dragging.  But it's already after 6:00 so I'm not going to take a nap now - I'll eat dinner and get to bed early.  Only, that doesn't mean sleep, it means bits and pieces of rest (today it's been no more than 2 hours without eating at a time).

Our glider got her on Saturday and I love it!  It's so much nicer than nursing in bed.  That said, I'm attempting to convince Colin to sleep in his crib.  I lasted a short 2 hours last night, most of which I was asleep in the glider in his room, before bringing him back to his bassinet.  I did however have him sleep in his bassinet rather than in our bed for the majority of the night.  Maybe tonight will be more successful!  I think the crib is so big to him that he feels like he needs to move around so much and ends up waking himself up.  He also makes lots of noises while he sleeps and if he is in the nursery I have no idea if he's awake and upset or asleep just making noises (since he still isn't much of a crier).

We have more pictures, not uploaded yet.  Most of them are on my phone so I'll work to get those uploaded in the next couple of days.  If you are on Facebook, feel free to look me up; I can upload pictures from my phone directly to Facebook so I don't have to have them downloaded here first.

There is really nothing big to report - and I guess that is good, right?  We are loving having Colin at home and once we make it through this growth spurt, maybe we'll all get more rest??  Well, I guess the baby and the daddy get decent rest, it's just mommy right now that doesn't.  All in good time, though, I'm sure!

Colin Michael

About 24 hours old

On February 7th at 8:17 AM, we welcomed Colin Michael, less than 7 hours after we got to the hospital.  He was 6 pounds 11 ounces and 19.5 inches, smaller than the 7.5-8 pound baby I was expecting.

I started having contractions that felt a little different than the Braxton Hicks I had been having overnight Saturday-Sunday morning.  They woke me up periodically, but nothing too bad.  I called work to see if they were going to be cost containing that day (too many nurses, not enough patients) and went ahead and was cost contained rather than going to work (even if they hadn't been cost containing, I probably would have called in sick; I knew I wasn't feeling right).  I went about my day pretty normally - ran some errands, went to the grocery store, hung out at home - but when it came time to go to the Super Bowl party that night I told Mike to go without me; I'd rather sit at home and watch the game and see if these contractions were the real thing.  Even when I told Mike earlier in the day that this may be the real deal, he still didn't believe me.

By mid-way through the game I was starting to feel a little more uncomfortable.  I was sitting on my birth ball and  rocking through most of the contractions but it still wasn't anything hugely painful.  I tried to sit on the couch to eat a bowl of cereal and immediately had to move back to the ball because it was the most comfortable place to be.  Mike got home and I told him that things were more intense than they had been but I'd let him know if I thought we needed to call the doctor or go to the hospital.  He went to bed around 11 PM and by midnight or so I realized we should call the doctor.

We called the doctor and he said to come in so off we went to the hospital.  I think we got there around 1:30 or 2 AM and once they got me all settled and on the monitor for a few minutes and were able to check me, I was 4 cm.  Mike was great through the whole thing, I couldn't have made it through without him.  I spent some time in the shower then most of the rest of the time moving around and sitting on the ball.  By 6:30 or so it was pretty intense and I had them check me again to see where I was.  I decided that if I had only gone 1 or 2 cm, I would really have to think about pain control because I didn't know how much longer I could do it.  Amazingly, I had dilated to 8-9 cm.  I kept on with the same methods of getting through the contractions as I had been doing and when the doctor came in just after 7 AM, I was complete.

Around that time I decided I needed a little pain control so got one dose of fentanyl right before they broke my water.  It helped me rest for a few minutes and also helped with the change in contractions after my water was broken - they were much more intense.  Right after the doctor broke my water, I started pushing.  The doctor kept saying that I was doing good and we'd have a baby after a few more pushes... little did I know, 20 minutes after I started pushing, Colin would be born, staring right at me looking dazed.

After his first bath

We stayed at the hospital for just over 24 hours.  Since Colin was a bit smaller than I anticipated, his going home clothes were a little big for him...

His old man jeans

My mom and stepdad came in to town but were not able to get to our house on Monday night because of a storm that kept them staying at the airport.  So they were able to make it to the hospital on Tuesday and have been here helping out since then.  It's been such a big help to have them around and I'm sure that we wouldn't have been able to make it through the first two weeks without them!

It's been an eventful 2 weeks and I'll add more over the next few days.  But needless to say, we are thrilled with our perfect little one and are so excited to see what the next days, weeks, and months hold for us!